


Entropy

by Xalts



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 04:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5898574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xalts/pseuds/Xalts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kwami sometimes meet, just the two of them, without their hosts. They talk, they reminisce, and sometimes they come out of it feeling better than they did going on.</p>
<p>This is not one of those times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entropy

They do this every so often, though the last time was several hundred years ago now. It’s rare they get the chance, but it’s important, they think, to have an evening like this: where they can drop the personas they put on for the sake of their hosts and talk kwami to kwami.

Tonight, a clear night, a full moon; the Tour Eiffel lights up the Paris skyline; the city spreads before them from this rooftop in the 7th  arrondissement. Tikki is already there when Plagg arrives. She crept away from Marinette over an hour ago to arrive early, her anxieties overwhelming her desire to stay by the girl’s side. Plagg is always more laid-back about this. She resents him for that.

“Tikki,” he says by way of greeting, his voice devoid of the charm and humour he usually injects into it. She replies with a nod, and he settles beside her. There’s a silence as they each try to work out how to begin the conversation.

“I worry,” Tikki finally admits. Plagg turns to her, inviting her to go on, but she takes her time, mulling her thoughts around in her head before letting herself voice them. “I worry if what we do is right.”

“How so?”

“They’re so young.”

“It’s best when they’re young,” Plagg says. “They’re fit enough to move around and recover from injuries. We can help them mature, make sure they know morality like we do.”

“They’re impressionable, though,” Tikki replies. She doesn’t meet his eye, staring at her lap instead. “We force our ideals on children young enough to accept them without questioning. Does that not concern you? Or has your heart grown as steely as your stomach over these years?”

Plagg furrows his brow and twitches one whisker. “I care, but we do what we must. The Miraculouses must survive. We must do this.”

“And the things we do to ensure that survival!” Tikki raises her hands, punctuating her words with gestures. “We make them unrecognisable even to their loved ones in the hopes of protecting their identity, but then make them unrecognisable to each other to protect ourselves! We’re split between what we do for their sake and what we do for ours. It’s an awful fight we must fight, Plagg, and I hate every part of it.”

“It’s because you care too much.” Plagg places his hand on one of hers, softening her wild thrusts. “You know the meaning for what we do, but you try not to think of it, and in doing so, allow your emotions to take over your thought processes. Think, Tikki! Remember what happened the last time we allowed the Cat and the Ladybug to know each other!”

Tikki shudders as the memory flashes through her mind. It had been long ago, so long ago, that she’d allowed herself to forget, but the power that had surged through their hosts when the Miraculouses had been privy to that knowledge… She remembers so vividly when prompted how her Ladybug’s skin had turned red, her eyes black voids, as her being was consumed by the power of the Miraculous, and how viciously she had fought with the Black Cat, a mass of black energy glowing with green flame, and the damage she and Plagg had to clean up afterwards. Their hosts hadn’t survived that. In detail, she recalls how cold her girl’s hand had been.

She realises she can’t remember her name. It’s been so long, and she’s tried so hard to forget that terrible incident, that she forgot to remember what matters. She hates herself for it.

When she shakes herself from that flashback, she realises Plagg is seeing it too, and she puts her hand on his shoulder to ground him, to call him back from that awful place.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she begs, and he nods, slowly, still disorientated. Together, they turn to the stars above, watching the distant lights twinkle slightly. Tikki presses herself against Plagg, comforting him with her presence.

“I wish we could go home,” he says quietly. She pauses.

“Home is probably nothing like we remember,” she says. Plagg hums in agreement.

“We’ve been gone for so long. I wonder if they even remember we’re here. It’s been thousands of years, Tikki… We’re probably a long-forgotten experiment, lost to time. Even if they did remember us, we wouldn’t be allowed back without the others. What good are we without them? And they’d surely deem it too dangerous to leave them behind. If just one stray Miraculous can give us this much trouble, imagine how it would be without us being here to stop it?”

“We’re needed here more than there,” Tikki says. “Oh, but Plagg! It’s been so long… I can hardly remember what the others are like! Do you remember them, Plagg?”

“I remember the pink one, a little. I don’t recall any name they had, but I think I recall their appearance. And a little of their personality - oh, how they’d hate how they’re being used by that Hawkmoth.” Plagg curls his lip in a snarl at the mere mention of the name. “But the others… They’ve been lost for so long.”

Tikki nods solemnly. “It’s been just the two of us for so long. I miss them.”

Another silence follows, this one in grieving for their lost brethren. Finally Plagg stands as if to leave. Tikki reaches out to take his hand, stopping him.

“Just a little longer?” she asks. He hesitates.

“We’ve already been too long, Tikki, and I bet you came early too. Our children need us. We must be there for them.”

“I know, Plagg, I know, but… For so long now, I’ve been looking after her… It feels so nice to just be myself, to not have to put on that false persona I use around her and to stay so upbeat for her sake. Even if being myself means to recall these painful memories, I can’t deny who I am, and to hide behind that mask day in and day out is killing me, Plagg. It’s sucking away what little soul I have left. And I know, in my heart, that I can only go so long before I let her down - before she turns away from me, for her own safety, or dies for my sake - and that thought is killing me. I can’t take it for so long. I need to be able to be here, like this, to talk to you. Plagg, please.”

He still hesitates. “I know, Tikki,” he says, barely above a whisper. This time, it’s him who can’t meet her eye. “I know more than anyone else could, but that’s exactly why we must be by their sides, always. I must go back to him.”

Slowly, slowly, she releases his hand. He stays for a few seconds more, though, unable to wrench himself away from the sanctuary of her existence.

“We’ll do this again?” she says to his back. He nods, barely perceptible, a black cat in a black night. And then he’s gone, shedding their meeting away like a skin, returning to his resigned life as a parasite on humanity.

Tikki stays a while longer, watching the stars. She imagines she can see home from here. She imagines the past Ladybugs, the ones she has seen walk away and seen die and seen be destroyed and seen leave her in any way she can remember from across the millenia of her life, smiling down at her from above, forgiving her for the atrocities she has committed in the name of Ladybug. She imagines Marinette, waiting for her to return.

She leaves it all behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> i marathoned like 9 episodes of this show and then wrote this idk


End file.
